[thechat] Traffic Light Cameras

[William Anderson]

javier velasco wrote:
> [snip]
> 
> .....What do those different type of plates you've been mentioning mean?

If you're talking about the plates *I've* been talking about, I'm talking 
about UK number plates, or licence plates.  The DVLA here refer to the 
"number plate" (the actual plate affixed to the car) and the "registration 
mark" (the letters and numbers themselves).

Number plates have been affixed to cars in the UK since 1903 (the first was 
the original "A1"!), and since 1963 have had a specific mark identifying not 
only where the mark was registered (to tell where a car has originally come 
from), but also *when*.  From January 1963 to August 1983, a letter was 
sufffixed to the standard 3 number, 3 letter plate format to identify the 
year of registration, with a new letter issued every year.

At first, the calendar year was used until August 1967 when the 'D'-suffix 
plate was retired for the 'E'-suffix plate, and the August changeover 
occurred every year until March 1999.  When they ran out of letters in 
August 1983 (only some letters are used for a suffix - I, O, Q and Z were 
omitted from the rotation - however, Q, introduced in 1983, is used to 
denote a kit cars, imports and non-factory manufactured vehicles where date 
of registration can't be determined), they moved the letter from suffix to 
prefix position, where the letter rotation began anew at A.

In March 1999, the 12-month rotation was dropped for a faster 6-month 
rotation, to clear out the numbers faster and introduce a new system.  Thus 
V, W, X and Y-prefix plates ran from March 1999 to September 2001, with the 
changes occurring in March and September rather than the traditional August. 
  Most people talking about recent cars will refer to say a V-plate car, or 
a T-plate car, or a G-plate car.  Most assume the prefix plate type, as 
there aren't a lot of suffix plated cars still around.

Now we use a different mark system of the form Region (two letters), Period 
of issue (two numbers), Unique Identifier (three random letters).  The 
letters denote where a car was registered, with the first denoting a large 
geographic region (such as Y for Yorkshire, M for Manchester, C for Wales, S 
for Scotland, etc) and the second denoting that region's main DVLA office 
(i.e. SA thru SJ for Glasgow, KA thru KL for Luton, CP thru CV for Swansea, 
etc).  The numbers get a bit tricky - two issues still occur every year. 
The first issue in March uses the last two digits of the year, the second in 
September increments the value by 50.  The first issue was the 51-plate in 
September 2001, followed by the 02-plate in March 2002, so clearly this 
system is only useful until 2050.

Typical plates (actually, the pre-1963 and post-2001 plates excluded, are 
all my old cars!):

GRF 391   - pre-1963 plate
PSD 917X  - 1 Aug 1981 - 31 Jul 1982 plate
B837 XYL  - 1 Aug 1984 - 31 Jul 1985 plate
F319 PSD  - 1 Aug 1988 - 31 Jul 1989 plate
N466 XTO  - 1 Aug 1995 - 31 Jul 1996 plate
SG03 JDC  - 1 Mar 2003 - 31 Aug 2003 plate
OF56 TRA  - 1 Sep 2006 - 31 Feb 2007 plate

Long winded post I know, but do I look like I care? :)

-- 
_ __/|  William Anderson      | Brodie: The Force is strong with this one
\`O_o'  neuro at well dot com |    Jay: Dude, don't encourage him
=(_ _)= http://neuro.me.uk/   |  -- Mallrats, (1995)
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